SOURCE: "Disaster in a Lush Land," in Newsweek, May 26, 1997, p. 76.

[Shapiro is an American journalist. In the following review, she offers praise for The God of Small Things, in particular Roy's playful use of language and development of eccentric characters.]

After you turn the last page and start thinking back on The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy's glowing first novel, you find you're still deep inside it. You can feel against your skin the lush vines and grasses, smell the pickled mangoes and sweet banana jam, hear the children singing as their uncle's car carries them home to disaster. Disaster was waiting from the start, for the novel begins with a little girl's funeral. Sophie Mol, almost 9, has drowned; and her twin cousins and their mother are mysteriously, horribly implicated. The details don't fall into place until the end of the book. But making our way there...